


Itch

by norah



Category: Wayfarers Series - Becky Chambers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 11:15:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13052901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norah/pseuds/norah
Summary: A few snapshots set between Ohan's Breaking and his first visit to the Fishbowl with Corbin.





	Itch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The Blue Escapist (theblueescapist)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theblueescapist/gifts).



The stars were still dancing. Ohan had not thought that a Solitary would be able to see the dance. Ohan had not thought about Solitaries much at all, except with an instinctive revulsion that he could no longer muster. He stared out the window and watched the complex mathematical pulls and pushes of the gravity and inertia of a million floating bodies in the black. It was beautiful. It had always been beautiful.

He felt an itch begin under his fur.

He scratched at his side. The itch traveled up to his shoulder blade. He contorted to reach it, but a sudden painful shoulder spasm had him curling up in a ball. He breathed through it. The itch was still there when the pain faded. He turned his back to the algorithmic beauty of the universe and crouched down to rub his shoulder against the windowsill. The edge pulled at his fur and scraped at his skin. He grunted in relief.

The nerve regeneration was awful. He couldn’t _think_ when he itched. It was foreign and disconcerting not to be able to think. It wasn’t that he hadn’t felt pain or discomfort with the Whisperer, but it had been somehow … less important. Further away. Everything had felt like that except his partnership with the Whisperer and the joy of fulfilling his purpose.

Ohan glanced at his scrib. The _Wayfarer_ ’s crew would be gathered in the mess now; Dr. Chef would come to give his nerve regeneration injection again in another hour, once the rest had finished eating. It contained an analgesic that relieved some of the itching sensation. Ohan rubbed his shoulder against the windowsill again. He wanted Dr. Chef to come now.

He felt…he didn’t know how he felt. Maybe he was hungry.

He pulled out a tube of his nutrient paste. He had always eaten when the Whisperer suggested it, before. He knew that other species got hungry based on variable energy expenditures; Dr. Chef had explained to him that healing would require more regular intake. The Whisperer was not there to suggest how often “more regular” should be. The strange feeling in his stomach intensified and he broke open the tube and took a mouthful.

It tasted as it always had. Thick and – like paste. Ohan knew some of the words in Klip for different food tastes but had no reference for what they meant; the paste contained the necessary nutrients for living, and did not need to be described. He knew that other species ate for pleasure and enjoyed tasting things. Kizzy was always eating snacks and talking about what they tasted like, though it was impossible to extrapolate normal human behavior from anything Kizzy did.

Ohan was not sure what Solitaries ate. He could ask, of course. Ashby had only said they did not eat paste. He had said that the Solitary Mas, the one he had met with on the heretic planet, was willing to help Ohan adjust to life after the break. Ashby had given Ohan her scrib contact. Ohan knew Mas was waiting for him to contact her. All broken Pairs went to Arun once they became Solitary. They would welcome him. They could answer his questions.

Ohan finished the tube and discarded it. The strange feeling was still there.

The door chimed, and Ohan let Dr. Chef in. Except it wasn’t Dr. Chef; it was Corbin. Ohan looked at his scrib. Dr. Chef was probably still feeding the rest of the crew.

Corbin sat down without being asked. He stared at Ohan, as though Ohan was the one who had come to him, as though he was expecting something.

The silence stretched.

Abruptly, Corbin said, “I’m not sorry.” He crossed his arms, and pressed his lips together. “I still think it was the right thing to do.”

Ohan remembered staring up at Corbin, remembered the fear and the inability to move and Corbin’s fierce, harsh determination. Like everything from his time with the Whisperer, it was muted. But he remembered. They had been afraid, and then it had hurt, it had hurt beyond anything they had ever imagined. And then he had woken up. Solitary.

Broken.

He looked at Corbin now. Ohan had never been good at reading Human facial expressions.

“We…” he said, and then corrected himself. “I. I am not sorry either. But I do not know if it was the right thing.”

Corbin snorted. “So I should have let you die?”

Ohan turned this over in his mind. He felt as though he had been turning it over since he regained consciousness. The Whisperer had always guided him in knowing what was right or wrong, what should be done.

 “I don’t know.” He tested the words out. Yes. That was a true thing.

“Well, I do,” Corbin said. “The people on this ship care about you. More than you care about yourselves. Yourself.”

“I don’t know,” Ohan said again. He saw Corbin inflate, as if to provide more proof of correctness, and held up one claw. It still shook, and he put it down quickly to stabilize himself. Corbin was quiet. “I don’t know about caring. This self is still…new.”

Klip was hard to speak. Ohan had never really needed to use it like this. All important things were understood by the Whisperer and known by other Sianat. Ohan had always considered himself fluent in Klip – he could translate everything the crew said to him and to one another – but like taste words, feeling words did not have a reference point. He knew some – angry, and scared, and content, and liking, and not liking. Others were harder.

Corbin’s eyebrows were down. “What do you mean, new? You’re Ohan. Ohan without that damn disease that was killing you.”

Ohan felt a surge of anger on behalf of the Whisperer. He knew anger. He bared his teeth at Corbin. “We had accepted our death. It was not for you to decide. “

 Corbin bared his teeth right back. Ohan felt the fur on his neck stand up at the challenge. “And yet here we are,” Corbin said, as though proving a point.

“Here you are,” Ohan said, “and here I am. We are no longer, the we that we were.”

Corbin’s eyebrows went further down. He stopped baring his teeth and sat back. “I don’t…” he started to say.

The door chimed again.

There was a still moment, as they looked at one another, and then Ohan opened the door. Dr. Chef bustled in, burbling harmonically, and stopped abruptly on seeing Corbin. “I told you,” he said to Corbin, with an edge of dissonance under his voice, “I told you to stay away from them.”

Corbin crinkled his upper lip. “I was just leaving,” he said, and stalked out.

Dr, Chef turned to Ohan. “Oh dear,” he said. “I am sorry, Ohan. I hope he didn’t upset you.”

“No,” Ohan said. He knew upset. The feeling that he had had before Corbin came in, the one that was not hunger, had faded.

“I itch,” he said to Dr. Chef.

Dr. Chef let out a chord of laughter. “I’ll just bet you do,” he said.

 

A week later, the itching had faded somewhat, and Ohan was feeling a little stronger. His muscles still twitched, and he was still weak, but Dr. Chef had assured him that he was recovering well.

He gazed out the window. The stars spun their patterns through the black, and he followed them in his mind, seeing the numbers describing their dance. He had always watched them, but today he was distracted. The strange feeling was back, the one like an itch that did not itch. He had eaten some paste, but it persisted.

He calmed his breathing. Dr. Chef had taught him to do it, in the days following the Breaking, to help with the other feeling, the one that made his breath come fast like a prey animal, the one that made his chest feel tight and achy. In. Out. In. Out.

In. Out.

It did not seem to help with this feeling. He stayed at the window, eyes fixed on the stars, but his mind wandered. He thought about Corbin and the strange visit the man had paid him. The feeling had gone away after that visit.

He tapped the vox panel on the wall. “Where is Artis Corbin?” he asked.

Tycho’s voice came after a brief hesitation. “Artis Corbin is in the algae bay,” he said.

Ohan closed his eyes. He had forgotten that it would not be Lovey’s voice coming from the vox. He forgot often. Forgetting was new; Pairs did not forget. The Whisperer remembered all things of importance. But now Ohan had to remember for himself, and it was hard.

So many things were hard without the Whisperer. Tasting, and feelings, and remembering, and healing. Watching the stars was harder too. He remembered that he had never tired of them before he became Solitary, but though he still understood them, the deeper meaning the Whisperer had seen in them and shown to Ohan was gone.

He hesitated, and then tapped the vox again. “Corbin?” he said.

“What do you want?” Corbin’s voice snapped. “I’m calibrating the salinity levels and I can’t be disturbed.”

“I understand,” Ohan said. He did. Caring for the algae was Corbin’s purpose and he was very dedicated to carrying it out exactly and reliably. Ohan respected that. “When you are done please come to see me.”

Corbin was silent. Ohan heard a clanking noise as the man carried out some task with the tanks. He waited.

“Fine,” Corbin said. The vox shut off.

Ohan took a few deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out.

In. Out.

The stars whirled by.

It was two hours before Corbin came. He sat in the same chair he had when he had come before, and crossed his arms the same way.

Ohan looked back at him. People had never been interesting, before. Oh, they had liked their crew well enough, and they had interacted with the other crew members as necessary, but they had been extraneous to the Whisperer’s gifts and the deeper meanings the Sianat Pair had found between the stars.

Ohan the Solitary found Corbin very interesting. He found the crew in general interesting now, but Corbin did not pity him, as Sissix and Rosemary and Ashby and even Dr. Chef did. Nor was he incomprehensible, like Kizzy, or sunk in his own grief, like Jenks.

Corbin was simple. He valued his work, and he said what he thought. And he did not pity Ohan. So Ohan would ask him.

“I have a feeling,” he said, looking out at the stars instead of at Corbin. “When I look at the stars now. I cannot keep my mind on them and my limbs feel as though they are about to twitch, but not like the nerve damage. Do you know this feeling?”

Corbin snorted. “Ask Dr. Chef. I know algae, not medicine.”

“It is not a body feeling,” Ohan said. “It is the other kind of feeling.” He gestured at the window. “Before, we could look at the stars always and it was always enough. Now there is this feeling.”

Corbin let out a bark of laughter, loud enough that Ohan startled and his ears set back involuntarily. He turned and looked at Corbin, who was grinning in a way that showed all his teeth but did not seem to be a challenge.

“You’re _bored_ ,” Corbin said. “I didn’t think Sianat Pairs could get bored. Space only knows anybody else would, just looking out the window all the time, but you guys—” 

“Not Pairs,” Ohan said. “I am Solitary.”

Corbin waved a hand, as though the distinction were unimportant. “You're bored,” he said. Ohan had heard Kizzy use the word – repeatedly – but had not connected it with the feeling. 

“How do I make it stop?” he asked.

Corbin shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t get bored, much. I have my work, and there is always something to fix or improve. Some people talk to other people, or have hobbies, or—” 

“What is a hobby?” Ohan asked.

“A thing you do that is not your work,” Corbin said. “I’ve never had time for one, myself.” He looked at Ohan and stood up. “I’m the wrong person to ask, you know. I’m not like other people. I don’t … I don’t need the same things they do.” 

Ohan did not know what other people needed. The Whisperer had always known what they needed, and had made sure that they had it, and other people had been only a distant concern.

“Thank you,” he said to Corbin, not knowing what else to say.

Corbin nodded awkwardly, and left.

Ohan looked out the window again. _Bored_. Yes.

 

> RECEIVED MESSAGE
> 
> ENCRYPTION: 0
> 
> TRANSLATION: 0
> 
> FROM: Ohan (path: 7342-543-82)
> 
> TO: Mas (path: 0032-657-91)
> 
> My captain, Ashby Santoso, told me you would answer my questions. I am Ohan, formerly Sianat Pair Ohan, now Solitary Ohan.
> 
> Things are very different since our Breaking. Everything is confusing without the Whisperer. You have many Broken Pairs on your planet. How do they learn to be Solitary after so long?
> 
>  
> 
> RECEIVED MESSAGE
> 
> ENCRYPTION: 0
> 
> TRANSLATION: 0
> 
> FROM: Mas (path: 0032-657-91)
> 
> TO: Ohan (path: 7342-543-82)
> 
> Learning to be Solitary takes time and practice, but it has its rewards as well. Come to Arun. We have people who know what you are going through and who can help you adjust.
> 
> Without the Whisperer, you can choose – so many things – and there are so many paths to explore. 

 

Ohan leaned back in his chair. He could choose, Mas said. But she also said to come to Arun. All Solitary went to Arun. He drummed his claws against the plex of the scrib. Choosing was new, and difficult, but he weighed in his mind what Mas had said about going to Arun. He thought about the Wayfarer, and her crew, and how he had watched and listened to them with a new consciousness as he recovered. About Dr. Chef’s harmonic laughter and gentle hands, always respectful of Ohan’s discomfort with touch. About Ashby’s pragmatic empathy, and Corbin’s blunt honesty. He thought about Arun, and Mas, and strangers who might help him adjust to being Solitary.

He looked at the stars, and thought about choosing. He thought for a long time.

 

“Corbin,” Ohan said over the vox.

He heard only a grunt, but he knew Corbin was listening.

“It is almost time for the crew to eat,” Ohan said.

“And?” Corbin sounded uninterested.

“Would you help me walk to the Fishbowl?” Ohan said.

There was a stunned silence, and then Corbin said, “Are _you_ going to eat?” He sounded incredulous.

“I don’t know,” Ohan said. There were a great many things he did not know. But he thought he could learn. Everything was new, and difficult, but he could learn. “Will you help me get there?”

“Yes,” said Corbin. “I’ll be right up.”

 


End file.
